Editor's Note 1/30/14

“Why so many small babies in Sangamon County?” is the question from this issue that haunts. See page 11 for the article by Lauren P. Duncan, our editorial intern. Sangamon County’s rate for low birth weight babies (under 5.5 pounds) is 9.3 percent, well above the national average of 6 percent. Why? One SIU doctor surmised it’s because so many women smoke. Smoking, he said, is a “huge problem in central Illinois.” What to do for the sake of the babies may be one topic of discussion at a meeting 6 p.m. Feb. 6 at Hoogland Center for the Arts. There SIU School of Medicine and the Citizens Club of Springfield present the Wisconsin researcher who has found that Springfield, despite its doctors and hospitals, really isn’t very healthy at all. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and publisher